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Tuesday, December 04, 2012

There are few weapons as deadly as the Israeli house. When its bricks and mortar are combined together, the house, whether it is one of those modest one story hilltop affairs or a five floor apartment building complete with hot and cold running water, becomes far more dangerous than anything green and glowing that comes out of the Iranian centrifuges.

Forget the cluster bomb and the mine, the poison gas shell and even tailored viruses. Iran can keep its nuclear bombs. They don't impress anyone in Europe or in Washington DC. Genocide is equally not worthy of attention when in the presence of the fearsome weapon of terror that is an Israeli family of four moving into a new apartment downwind from Jerusalem.

Sudan may have built a small mountain of African corpses, but it can't expect to command the full and undivided attention of the world until it does something truly outrageous like building a house and filling it with Jews. Since the Sudanese Jews are as gone as the Jews of Egypt, Iraq, Syria and good old Afghanistan, the chances of Bashir the Butcher pulling off that trick are rather slim.

Due to the Muslim world's shortsightedness in driving out its Jews from Cairo, Aleppo and Baghdad to Jerusalem, the ultimate weapon in international affairs is entirely controlled by the Jewish State. The Jewish State's stockpile of Jews should worry the international community far more than its hypothetical stockpiles of nuclear weapons. No one besides Israel, and possibly Saudi Arabia, cares much about the Iranian bomb. But when Israel builds a house, then the international community tears its clothes, wails, threatens to recall its ambassadors and boycott Israeli peaches.

You can spit on the White House carpets and steal all the gold in Greece. You can blow up anything you like and threaten anyone you will, but you had better not lift a drill near Gilgal, where Joshua and a few million escaped Hebrew slaves pitched their camp.

Some may think that genocide or nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapons, but as we see, time and time again, the ultimate weapon is a hammer and a fistful of nails in a Jewish hand. How can even the most talented Iranian nuclear scientist hope to compete with the humble tools of a Jewish carpenter?

Obama has yet to respond to the Muslim Brotherhood coup in Egypt. The gangs of paid rapists assaulting women in Tahrir Square on behalf of the Sharia state are nothing for the White House to worry about. Tunisian protesters against Islamist rule are losing their eyes, but Tunisian eyes come and go, Jewish houses are forever.

Everyone has their standards and he and the international community have theirs. There are things that we all cannot abide. And for all the Miss America answers about ending war, hunger and people who wear plaid in public, the one thing that everyone will stand up against or sit down in opposition to is the Israeli house.

White House officials are already insisting that Netanyahu "humiliated" Obama by authorizing the building of houses. This is the worst Israeli crime since two years ago when the city of Jerusalem passed some houses through one stage of a multi-stage approval process while Biden was visiting the country.

Hillary called it an insult and spent two hours yelling at Netanyahu over the phone. Axelrod declared it an affront. Biden was so furious that he refused to come down for dinner until an hour later. For weeks the media howled that Netanyahu had humiliated Obama through the dastardly act of allowing one of the country's mayors to approve housing while the sacred presence of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr was intersecting with Israeli airspace.

While Russia may threaten war against the United States, China may mock the United States at a ceremonial banquet in the White House, Iran and North Korea may play Obama for a fool, but only Israel has managed to achieve official recognition for "insulting and humiliating" Obama, without even trying, proving once again that the Jewish race is so talented that it often achieves things that other people may only dream of, without even realizing that they are doing it.

Now that Netanyahu has gone to the mattresses, literally, by authorizing new housing, the media has begun braying that Israel has humiliated Obama all over again. They say that every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings. But every time an Israeli jackhammer roars, Obama stands, like that famous trash-mourning fake Indian, off Highway 1 between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with a tear slowly making its way down one glistening cheek at the sight of another humiliating Israeli house.

According to the New York Times, which is never wrong, building more houses makes peace impossible. Peace, which is not in any way obstructed by rockets, suicide bombers, unilateral statehood bids and declarations of war, comes up against only one obstacle. The stout unyielding wall of the Israeli house. You can shell Israeli houses, bomb them and break inside to massacre the people living inside, but then after all that, Israel goes and builds more of those damn things.

Hamas shoots thousands of rockets and Israel builds thousands of houses. But Israeli houses generally stay where they're built, while Hamas rockets are as likely to kill Gazans as they are to put holes in the roofs of those dastardly houses. And in the arms race between houses and rockets, the Israelis appear to be winning. And that's not good for peace. If Israelis get the dangerous idea that they can just keep building houses and outlast all the talented rocketeers who spend their time with the Koran in front of one eye and the Anarchist's Cookbook in front of the other, then what hope is there for peace?

That is why no one cares much about Hamas rockets, which only kill Israelis, who most reasonable people in London, Paris and Brussels think have it coming anyway, but get into a foaming lather about an Israeli house. Killing Israelis has never been any obstacle to peace. Twenty years of killing Israelis has not dissuaded a single Israeli government from sitting down at the table to dicker with the terrorists. But an Israeli family living in a house is holding down territory that it will be harder to then cede to terrorists when the angels have blown their horns, the seas have all gone dry and peace is carried in on a golden platter by 72 virgins accompanied by their flying suicide bomber mates.

The problem is an old one. Pharaoh struggled with it. So did Hitler. And so does Hamas. What do you do when there are too many Jews living. The answer is usually obvious.

Israel's Peace Partners tried to go back to the time-honored Egyptian tradition of throwing all the Jews into the sea. But despite an entire officer corps temporarily "on leave" from the armed forces of the United Kingdom, they only got as far as half of Jerusalem, where they blew up every synagogue, and took the West Bank of Israel, or as the non-indigenous Zionist invaders with no roots in the region call it, Judea and Samaria.

Nineteen years later, Israel's Peace Partners had traded in their British officer corps for a Soviet officer corps, and lost Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, proving that when it came to killing Jews, the Communists were better at it when the Jews weren't shooting back. Ever since then the world, or those portions of it populated entirely by diplomats and the better class of journalists, has been urging Israel to give back the land to an imaginary country to be populated entirely by terrorists.

This peace plan, which has worked as well as fighting fire with gasoline, has not in any way been endangered by two decades of terror, but trembles down to its toes every time an Israeli hammer falls on an Israeli nail in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Because that land must go back so that rockets can be shot from it into Israel, so that Israel can invade it and reclaim it, and then sit down for another peace process to return the land from which the rockets will be fired, which will be invaded, which will be given back... for peace.

And Israeli houses endanger this cycle of peace and violence. They endanger it by creating "facts on the ground", a piquant phrase that only seems to apply to houses with Jews. Muslim houses in no way create facts on the ground, even though they are built out of the same material and filled with people. Or perhaps they create the good kind of facts on the ground. The kind of preemption of negotiations that the professional peacemakers approve of.

But it's hard to know what exactly the peacemakers approve of, because their arguments and their definitions keep changing all the time. All that we know is that they disapprove of Israeli houses.

The United States repeatedly assured Israel that Jerusalem would in no way be endangered by the peace process. No less a personality than Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. co-sponsored three Senate resolutions urging that Jerusalem should remain Israel's undivided capital. Then like all good politicians, he was horribly offended when the Israelis actually took him at his word.

Obama gave an election speech four years ago where he declared that Jerusalem should be undivided. A day later he explained that he meant "undivided" in some spiritual sense that did not preclude it from actually being divided.

UN Chief Ban Ki-moon has declared Israeli houses to be an "almost fatal blow" to the peace process. It is, of course, only an "almost fatal blow" because the peace process, like Dracula, cannot be killed. Israeli houses, fearsome as they may be with their balconies and poor heating in winter, are never quite enough to kill it.

Like the monster of a horror movie, the peace process always comes back and no matter how many blows the Israeli house delivers to it, a year later there's a sequel where the Israeli house is being stalked by the peace process monster all over again.

The army of lethal Israeli houses, which may not be built for another five years, if ever, seem formidable in the black newsprint of the New York Times, in the fulminations of Guardian columnists and the shrill talkingpointation of CNN talking heads, but its actual potency is limited to housing Jewish families and infuriating international diplomats and their media coathangers.

Europe is furious, Obama is seething, the UN is energized, and somewhere in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wipes the grease out of his mustache and wonders what he could do to get this much attention. He briefly scribbles down some thoughts on a napkin but then dismisses it as being too implausible. As much as it might get the world's attention, there is just no way Iran can put up apartment buildings in Jerusalem.

One can't help but wonder, what would be if ... you wake up one beautiful morning, and "peace process" nightmare is a history, Moshe Feiglin is Prime Minister, Temple Mount is back to its rightful owners, Israel just said goodbye to the U.N., Oslo is back to being only a capital of Norway, long overdue annexation of Judea and Samaria and return to Gaza underway, unconditional deportation of illegal invaders, decent loyal citizens are protected and left in peace, and disloyal ones are encouraged to leave ... and then you actually wake up into this eerie branch of reality.

Retired say's. In a poetic sort of way Daniel has gotten to the core of the issue.Europe drives the anti-Jewish movement.The Moslems are their troops!Soon Europe (EU) will financially go down the toilet & the Moslem will go with them.It should be noted that the elite working out of Brussels are not Socialists,sort of Communists lite,they are Statists from the old school.European Democracy is a sham.They are culturally locked into fairly ridgid class systems.Systems that are hundreds of years old.The peons have been given sports jackets & called "voters" or simply "the public".In reality it is mob rule with the mob carefully controlled & manipulated by the elite Statists.The Statists are not Marxists,believers in Soviet style Communism.Rather they are the heirs of Otto Von Bismarck,Germany's Iron Canchellor.The European elites are merely the aristocrats & rulers of yesteryear morphed into Central Bankers,financiers & billionaire industrialists.These Statists rule through their political puppets in Brussels. You may ask "what has this to do with Israel & Jews",everything!Israel & the Jewish way are a viable alternative to the European class structure & if copied might very well mean the end for the Elite European Statists

"How can even the most talented Iranian nuclear scientist hope to compete with the humble tools of a Jewish carpenter?"

Or Rome?

Mr. Greenfield, you are a brilliant man. I thank you for another inspired article on the greatest story ever told.

It took me, spoiled baby boomer, about 55 years to get around to reading the Bible and begin to understand it. I'm convinced that it is essential reading to understand the history we are living through. Daniel, you are a part of this history, a role I don't think was willed by you.

Anonymous, I agree; the Jewish people are the most naturally egalitarian in the world. They are historically the foundation for American freedom - the successful alternative to feudalism.

The American Revolution was a fight to eliminate the old monarchical vestiges of feudalism in the colonies. Their success aroused the same antipathy in the feudal order of Europe then as Israel does today.

Daniel, a brilliant article. And Some Guy is correct in that should this only be satire.

What the Jewish house represents is a family of living Jews. Living Jews are in direct opposition to the goals of Israel's peace partners, so therein lies the eternal problem. The message from the int'l community to Israel is that Israel's commitment to the peace process is evaluated on her positive commitment to be slain.

It will not be Joseph Robinnette Biden's fault if Jerusalem is divided. It will be Israel's own fault just as the destruction of Jerusalem was Israels own fault in Roman times , time of Babylone destruction so God placed that at Israel own door.No body like to consider this but in the end it sadly comes to the truth.

Rafi, the sad truth is you are 100% correct. It has been and always will be Israel's own responsibility to protect herself and the Jewish people. No amount of whining and crying will change that.

Just as the United States and her electorate have decided to go in a different direction due to her own self interests, so Israel should go. there are those who continually cry " Oh, Israel cannot do anything without the United States!" To this, I say Bull manure. Every nation in this world will stick the shiv in Israel's back. That has been true throughour man's history.

If Israel is not allowed to exist as a Jewish state, her leaders should use her nuclear stockpile as a bludgeon on other Jew hating "friendly" democracies as well as Jew hating Muslim nations. Has anyone seen North Korea invaded lately?

Bandy about the Sampson option. (of course, this will never happen. because Jews have to be victims...in fact they are the best!)

My dream is for Israel to tell the world to F off. No more land for peace, and no more turning the other cheek. In no uncertain terms, The Jewish state proclaims "we want to be left alone and live in Peace." And when those Brave EU Jewhaters, Obamasemites and Iranian death lovers bully and threaten The Jewish homeland, the government simply states "if it gets ugly for us-it will get ugly for you." Perhaps many suitcases of uranium placed in various world capitals would be a great incentive for the world wide scum to desist and move on to less fortunate-non nuclear nations. LET ISRAEL LIVE IN PEACE!

Hahahahahaha. Are people really mad about this? I mean I understand the move is political in that they are making sure the territory in question is always under their command... but in my opinion it seems like maybe pakistan is just mad.

The only housing crisis we have to fear is the Jewish housing crisis itself! ;)Click your shoes twice, Dorothy, and repeat after me, "There's no place [for a Jewish] home."Homeless consciences and politicians of the world, unite! Vorwaarts!Bill K.

Thank you for this excellent piece Sultan.Just one minor correction in the 6th paragraph......unfortunately we haven't had Jewish carpenters building our homes since 1967.We'll know we're on the right track when that is rectified.

Daniel, you really had my attention with the way you began your column. I thought at first you were a fanatical antiSemitic. Then, as I continued to read(I couldn't help myself!),I realized you were engaging in some really sharp sarcasm. It is really good. Well written and certainly worth sharing. God bless!

Western countries' ruling elites have LONG OPPOSED HUMAN RIGHTS FOR JEWS.

What other people on earth do the haters seek to deny INDIGENOUSPEOPLE the right to live, breath and build on their own WORLD-FAMOUSBIBLICAL Jewish homeland - the eternal capital of Israel-Jerusalem-thesite of the GOD designated Jewish Temple, and Judea and Samaria.

Israel ignore the rabid Jew-haters - build three million homes! Do it for GOD! Do it for EVERY non-Muslim on earth!

All Muslims have to do is move to another country and then declare the land is Islamic and belongs to Muslims. Muslims have done this in Israel.Islam's War Against Jews is part of global jihad against ALL non-Muslims.

NO SURRENDER, EVER!Not one inch of Free World Jewish land to the enemies of humanity!

In Islam, peace is achieved when a hated infidel nation is attacked, conquered and destroyed. The dirty, MURDEROUS peace that is sought for little Israel. No Muslim terror state implant in TINY Israel!NO SURRENDER TO GLOBAL JIHAD!

Zecharia the prophet says that Jerusalem will be divided in the last days."For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle."So Obama or not, it is going to occur through someone's dealings

Yes these house are dangerous to WORLD PEACE. We must --immediately --assemble the League of Nations, in Tehran to address this milliant and world shattering issue. How is it possible that on the PEACE-FULL PLANET EARTH, those milliant and dangerous Jews dare build houses in their Sovereign country. (and I bet --soon--that they will even put furniture in these house.---what an affront to world peace.).Steve in Jerusalem

The basis for this argument is the belief that the lands of Israel (and its neighbors) was given by God to the Jews. What I don't understand is if I was a Jew and thought that God gave me the land of Israel, I would feel obligated to go and live on that land. Strangely few American Jews have any intention of moving to Israel. Why is that?

Daniel Greenfield might be the literary genius of our days. That he should be a journalist writing about politics is one of the most ironic things I've ever seen. G-d bless you Mr. Greenfield, from your lips to G-d's ears, and hopefully also, to Stephen Harper's, the ex-"greatest friend" Israel has.